Replacing Dead lights

[Ron Hill]

Guys : Noah is correct.  The worst thing that you can do with acrylic is to make the hole too tight - That's what causes the cracks.

Also I noted that in the U-Tube vidio, the worker mentioned polycarbonate (Lexan!!) NOT acrylic.

A few thoughts

[KWKloeber]

Ken,

I think I'm missing something here, CTY recommends not putting screws in the side windows but put screws in the side windows.

Kevin

You're not missing anything.  Things change over time, 'eh? 
Just like on the 30, CTY used screws originally.  Problems (apparently) resulted, at least according to Warren and Gerry.  So, no screws now, per the published instructions.

If one attempts to make logical sense of collectively what boat manufacturers do over time, one can lose their mind.  HA

[scgunner]

Ken,

You're right, things do change. It does appear to me that the windows are set differently(lessons learned). That's something I've always liked about Catalina is there constant improvements and upgrades. Important point by Ron, if you decide to use screws make sure the holes in the plexiglass are big enough to slip the screws in, also the screws should be just snugged in, not cranked down.

[ewengstrom]

I see where most are still in favor of the Dow 795 (only) adhesive method of install. (screws or no screws...that's the question...) Having just done this work using the 3m VHB tape I'm feeling pretty confident that it will hold up in our particular area of Virginia, we do get extreme's of hot and cold but perhaps not as crazy as the tropics. If I experience any kind of failure in this install I'll be happy to report the results back and eat my share of humble pie. If you don't hear from me on this subject, it's still working well and I'm very happy with it.
Stu, thanks for the info regarding the shrinking of pictures, I've looked into that in the past but still haven't gotten the hang of it yet. Every picture is on my Galaxy phone and it seems to be quite the process to reduce them. I'll keep working on it though, thanks for the help.